From: Jody Elliott Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 01:36:08 -0000 Hi Bill, I have been to Bonaire a few times. I have always stayed at Harbour Village. Awesome beach front rooms, big and kitchen w/microwave, coffee maker, refrig. and a sink. Saw one of the garden rooms, nice but a bit small. http://www.harbourvillage.com/index.html It is probably one of the more expensive hotels. But I love it there. I may be biased as that is where I did my first resort dive 2 1/2 years ago. Same crew in the dive shop (Great Adventures Bonaire)each year. House Reef is an awesome dive. Dive boat, when I have gone, at the most I've had 10 divers, but mostly 6-8. Afternoons can just be two divers. Food not great at the hotel, but in town has awesome food. Eat at Capriccios, Will's Tropical Grill, Donna & Georgio's, Tappas place that is right on the water starts with a 'G' adn It's Raining Fishes. All great. A friend stayed at Lion's Den for a week, cramped room, cockroaches and water pressure not great. Cheap though. Shore diving is easy. I found AB Car Rental the best price counting insurance and they gave me a discount on my trip in June when I asked for it. Because I was a repeat customer. Boat dive Klien Bonaire, site called Forrest is great and 'It's a nice dive' for turtles. Night dive the town pier andif you can talk someone in to guide you at the salt pier at night and the day. Because of 9-11, working dock, you have to get permission to do it and it has to be guided. There's my 2 cents. Hope it helps. Email me directly if you want some more help. Jody ---------------- From: Barbara Dwyer Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 20:43:14 -0700 hi Bill, Thanks for posting the Bonaire request for info. Our dive club (Aqua Tutus) has organized a upcoming trip, so I'm benefiting too>>. Here's a link for "Bonaire talk," which also contains links to to a web cam and a "critter cam" ( http://www.bonairetalk.com/newsgroup/messages/626/626.html?1180031229). Wikipedia may also have some good information. My b.f. and I are planning a day trip to Curacao to see the colonial architecture and check out the island. Flights are by Divi Divi Air, cost about $100 RT, and take 25 min flights each way. We'll be on Bonaire for two weeks, so some topside time and a scenery change will be just fine. Cost was just under $3000 per person for for the airfare/diving/lodging that includes a truck and breakfast/lunch. Lost of potential good things I've heard over the years: When I learned to dive, the only other woman in my Boston class opted to do her check out dives there. Very wise of her. Bonaire was either the first or one of the first u/water preserves. Topside, Curacao also has one of this hemisphere's oldest synagogue that was found by Dutch Jews whose work salvaged the Antilles for the Netherlands. It subsequently sheltered Jews from the Inquisition, Hitler, and other persecutions. http://www.snoa.com/snoa.html if interested. The ABC islands also have caves (to my great delight). nice). I was surprised (and happy) to learn this. Topside caving's available, as is cave "snorkeling." Underwater caves exist all over the island, but cave diving hasn't taken off.. Most of the dive operators do not themselves cave dive Community opposition's strong; my sources say that locals fear destruction of the bats' habitat and possibly annoying the spirits who inhabit the caves. So maybe we'll get in, maybe not. At the very least I'll bring my cave helmet to check out topside caverns. Then there's a national park, the salt industry, and trade winds that blow constantly every month except September. Throw in a coupe of potboilers. What more can one one imagine? Let there be warm clear water,beautiful reefs, tropical reefs and birds, fresh fruit and rods and. some I'd think this would make Bonaire a catamaran/Laser paradise but so far haven't seen any rental opportunities. But I'll tuck my catamaran gloves away for topside days. Best, Barbara Dwyer ---------------- From: Holger Fuerst Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 10:05:33 -0700 Hi Bill, A group of us (27 photogs) just returned from a 12-day trip to Bonaire on May 7th. We stayed at Buddy Dive just north of town on a DEMA special. The special included "unlimited boat diving, free Nitrox, and a mini-truck rental for the duration of the stay. Our group rated the resort 4 out of 5 stars. The 24/7 dive operation is excellent, though the could improve it by providing individual/private dive lockers. Also, because they had over-booked the resort the "unlimited boat diving was limited to 2 boat dives a day (both either am or pm, depending on which group you were in). They pretty much let us dive our own profiles. I didn't do a single dive lasting less than an hour, with the longest dive (at the town pier) lasting 78 minutes! Though water temps. were a nice 79 degrees, my 3/2 mm suit wasn't really enough. Photographers tend to not move all that much... The reef at the resort was fantastic! Sand out to about 20' deep (50-100' off shore), then a healthy sloping reef down to 120'. Very gently sloping sand flats beyond that. The resort (Buddy Dive) is very clean and the staff VERY friendly and accommodating. Each room our group occupied included a small kitchen and full-sized fridge - important, as our package deal only included breakfast each day. Breakfast is good and plentiful, including fresh waffles, omelets to order, eggs any way you like them, fresh fruit, yoghurt, and a variety of other (standard) fixings. There are a couple of inexpensive supermarkets in town that allow you to stock up your fridge with whatever your heart desires. Lunch bought at the resort again rated 4 out of 5 stars. It was served at their pool bar cabana. Dinner at the resort was served at the Lion's Den. Suffice it to say that after one night there we didn't go back. Their servers were rude and the dinner 2 stars max. Next door at Captain Don's the dinner is a bit more expensive, but 5 stars for sure! Their filet mignon with blue cheese is to die for! Supposedly, their lunch menu was good as well, though I personally didn't try it. The best local dining experience we found is a restaurant called Mi Banana. It is half the price of the resorts and the food is outstanding! It is a local non-touristy place a couple of miles inland. Ask any of the dive staff for directions - the parents of one of Buddy Dive's dive masters own it. A couple more general things about Bonaire. Must dive sites include the Salt Pier, Angle City, Something Special, the Hilma Hooker, Daniela's Leap, Little Wall and several of the sites on Klein Bonaire. We also did 2 dives with Larry's Wild Side on the rough East Shore of Bonaire. Totally different and absolutely worth the $105! There we saw schools of up to 8 Diamond Eagle Rays at a time, lots of turtles (though we also saw those on the house reef), a big school of tarpon up to 6' long that let you swim right through them (the tarpon would barely move out of your way, trying to stare you down!), schools of jacks, barracuda, etc. Pretty cool and different from the rest of Bonaire. I wasn't impressed with the Town Pier. Though there were a couple of frog fish and one seahorse, that dive IMO did not live up to the hype. Otherwise, I took just about 2,500 underwater images! (~; Be sure to bring lots of recording media, a lap top, or a backup drive of some sorts! O n our last day there - a non-dive day - my wife and I visited Slagbai National Park. There we ran into Chris Humphries (from Subaquatic Camera Repair in Hollister). A few months ago she opened up a photo shop and repair facility for Dan Blodget at Divi Flamingo. Definitely stop by there and say 'hi' to her! Anyway, the national park is very interesting. It is about a 2-hour one-way loop by car on a dirt road. Take your time and stop at the noted sights to look around. This will make that trip about 4 hours long. You'll see wild parrots, donkeys, and flamingos, and a general scenery of what the island looked like before it became inhabited. All in all, we had a great time and will definitely go back one day! Cheers! Holger Fuerst ---------------- From: Rick Tavan Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 21:35:54 -0700 I was there for the first time last month. I stayed at the Divi Flamingo. The dive pier is excellent - lockers for your gear; you can pick up a tank a few feet away, gear up on tables and jump off the end of the pier in minutes, 7x24. Easy exit via two wide stairways. Rinse tanks right there on the pier. There is good terrain and wildlife only a few fin kicks away. The dive boats are good and take you from the same pier all over the area. They assign groups to a boat and individuals can sign up for any boat that has room. They run 2 tank boats in the AM, 1 tank in the PM. They specify dive time limits ranging from 30-50 minutes in order to meet their schedules; I dislike this. The DMs were OK but the women in the dive shop (just ashore from the pier) were grumpy and nasty respectively. The hotel and its food service were mediocre. The hotel staff ranged from indifferent to outright hostile. The photo shop folks were nice. I won't stay there again. There is a nicer looking resort down the shore to the left as you face the water that might be worth a try. We enjoyed its restaurant (The Drunken Pelican?) a lot. Don't know what its dive logistics are. A better plan might be a condo with a package deal including truck rental. Then you could buy your own groceries for breakfast and lunch, drive to the many shore diving sites and go into town for dinner. The restaurants in town were good to excellent, including a genuine Italian (Capriccio?) that served the best Italian cuisine I've had outside of Italy (where I lived for 14 months and learned to appreciate the real stuff). But if you try this, be advised that you can't leave anything in your car or truck during a dive. Allegedly, anything left will be stolen. So you dive with everything you bring, then drive away to refill or swap tanks. The diving was quite good with huge numbers of fish and excellent corals and invertebrates. Water was about 81F, no current, no surge, 30-60 foot viz most of the time. The terrain slopes steeply off a shallow shoulder but is not a wall. There was very little variety among sites - most had essentially identical terrain. I'm not enough of a naturalist to say whether the wildlife varied - I sure didn't see much difference between sites. Many of the sites we visited by boat are also accessible from shore, some from rocky beaches, some from ladders. We were often moored only 10 or 20' from shore. BEWARE: The island authorities require a briefing, sometimes billed as a "checkout dive," before you can dive. At least at Divi Flamingo this had to be done the morning after you arrive, after the dive boats had all left. The dive was unsupervised - just go adjust your weighting and do your first shore dive. But this does mean you're grounded the day you arrive if you miss the (9am?) briefing and limited to shore diving the day you get your briefing. It's aggravating, but the resulting forced shore diving is quite pleasant. Bonaire is, after all, the shore diving capital of the Caribbean. The resort happily sold us "morning" boat dives that we couldn't use but they did let us make them up on afternoon trips later in the week. Think carefully about your logistics, quiz your dive operator mercilessly and don't buy in advance more boat dives than you will be able to use conveniently. BEWARE: There is a seemingly attractive connection via Montego Bay on Air Jamaica. Don't do it. Seating is first-come, first-served. They overbook and cancel flights routinely and may move bumped passengers onto your flight. This happened to us. The flight from Montego Bay to Bonaire goes only once a week, so they re-routed us through Curacao ... the next day. This cost us more aggravation and a day of lost diving. Bumped passenger compensation is whatever you can negotiate, you have no rights, they are hostile and they lie a lot trying to get rid of you. Don't fly Air Jamaica anywhere. Don't go to Jamaica for any reason except ham radio. I think a better routing to Bonaire may be American to Curacao or Aruba and then the local airline (called Dutch Antilles Express last month) to Bonaire. Wish I had tried it. Have fun. /Rick Tavan ---------------- From: Burrill Gray Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 16:33:06 -0700 (PDT) Bill, I was in Bonaire several years ago and I stayed at Buddy Dive Resort and I just loved it. It is truly dedicated to the diver, though non-divers (read: snorklers) can have just as much fun as well. They provide townhouse condo-style accommodations with a pickup truck included with each condo. They also have a pretty nice restaurant where most everyone goes for meals and just to hang out, watching the comings-and-goings of the divers; it over looks their little lagoon. Oh, and by the way the lagoon has some pretty spactacular diving, probably no more than 100 or so yards from anyplace on the resort property. Moreover, you have unlimited access to tanks pretty much 24/7, as it is pretty much a resort that caters to "self-reliant" divers. Boat dives are great fun and the crew is, or was when I was there, very friendly and helpful getting you to the best spots. I've been to dive destinations from Central America to Thailand, and Bonaire is probably one of my favorites. Unless things have changed, you're in for a treat, at least I hope so. Here is the link: http://www.buddydive.com/ Burrill Gray ---------------- From: John Buster Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 07:43:12 -0700 (PDT) Hi Bill, Our dive club just came back from Bonaire about 3 weeks ago. We stayed at the Divi Flamingo which is one of the main dive resorts there. I have to say that I would not recommend the Divi as a place to stay. It is a run down property and the staff is unfriendly and disorganized. I think this resort was probably OK a few years ago (so I am told) but it is not that way now. The thing the Divi has going for it is that there is a very nice reef right in front of the it and it is located right next to town which has a lot of nice restaurants. Another place you might want to check into is "Buddy Dive" which looked to be a nice property and is located on the other side of town from the Divi. No matter where you stay you will enjoy the easy diving and the quantity of fish life there. John Hoeppner Amigos Del Mar Dive Club ---------------- From: Gary Allman Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 06:30:29 -0000 Hi Bill, All the resorts on Bonaire are dive-friendly! It sorta depends on what you want, and with whom you are going. My girlfriend and I went last October. I researched way, way too much. If you are happy with a new (2-3 year) condo, well appointed, competitive, etc., I recommend Den Laman. The only reason I would stay some where else next time would just be to try somewhere different. We stayed in a 1BR waterfront there. The adjacent dive op is okay, but we really didn't need much. I've read that their boat is a bit difficult to rig up in, doesn't have the tank holders that I'm used to on larger craft. We did the unlimited shore diving for the week, free Nitrox upgrade, for about $130. The shore diving is really lovely there, a multitude of marked sites, etc., no schedule, just load up tanks in the truck and go. We had a condo/pickup truck/dive package. Boat dives in Bonaire are cheap, since the run is only 1-5 miles each way. The boats vary a bit. If the winds are calm, there is an operation called Larry's Wild Side diving which dives the east (windward) side of the island, where more pelagics might be seen. We did breakfast and lunch in the condo, dinners out. There is a good restaurant for dinner at Den Laman. One drawback of Den Laman, if you want that sort of thing, is that it is just a condo; no pool or other amenities. Another really well recommended place is www.deepblueview.com, with 100% good reviews. Buddy Dive is well recommended, as are the condos at the Bel-Mar resort. The DiviFlamingo has the advantage of being a stroll to town, so no need to drive to dinner or whatever. Check out the links from www.gotobonaire.com; you can follow the Den Laman link and see photos of the grounds, inside the individual condos, etc. Some of the other resorts are time-shares, quite a bit older, and vary with how recently they have been renovated, or how the owner decorates/furnishes them. I assume you have already found the ABC islands group on www.scubaboard.com (now under carribean/lesser Antilles), and the site www.bonairetalk.com Not on the beach, but cheaper and well recommended is the Golden Reef Inn. A lot of places are only A/C in the bedroom(s). Den Laman is A/C throughout, which was nice since it was pretty warm when we were there. If I can shake loose the time, I might be going back to Bonaire later this year too. There is a guide book you can buy, http://www.infobonaire.com/bsdme/ Don't expect diagrams and photos, but it has a description of the shore dive sites, entries, difficulty, etc. and is well worth having. Our favorite site, and the only one we did twice, was Angel City. It is in the part of the island that has a double reef -- swim out with gradual drop to depth about 25-30 feet (pretty much any site), then the reef rolls off. At Angel, after bottoming out at maybe 80 feet(??can't remember), the second reef comes back up to maybe 50 feet, then down to whatever. We swam out then along the outside of the second reef, then along the inside of the 2nd reef , the back to the first reef, etc. The top of the coral, etc. is about "safety stop depth" at all of the sites, so you can have something to enjoy while bubbling N2; then the depth gradually decreases to shore (30 yds up north, 150 yards toward the south end, from shore to dropoff). Okay, I finished that bottle of wine, so I'll say goodnight ;-) Any questions, just ask, Gary Allman ---------------- From: Ted Norton Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 21:59:03 -0700 (PDT) Bill here are my shots of captain don's once again highly recomended. Have a great time You're invited to view these photos online at KODAK EASYSHARE Gallery! Just click on View Photos to get started. http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=45mdca98.c1192184&x=0&y=ybww5 If you'd like to save this album, just sign in, or if you're new to the Gallery, create a free account. Once you've signed in, you'll be able to view this album whenever you want and order Kodak prints of your favorite photos. Enjoy! Instructions: Click view photos to begin. If you're an existing member you'll be asked to sign in. If not, you can join the Gallery for free. http://www.kodakgallery.com/Register.jsp Questions? Visit http://help.kodakgallery.com. ---------------- From: Ted Norton Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 21:55:24 -0700 Bill, I spent a week at captain don's. I highly recoment that location. buddy dive resort and sand dollar are nearby and I would assume just as good. The food at captain dons was great although breakfast was average at best. The diving is also great right from the resort 24 hours a day the people were great. I had room 78 over looking the pool and th ocean. http://www.habitatdiveresorts.com/bonaire/index.html I'll send some pics via kodak gallery of the resort and some underwater stuff. I am not skilled at the underwater photog though. I went for one week and I am planning two more next feb at captain dons. Free rum punch mondays from 6-7pm Ted Norton ---------------- From: Tim Boyd Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 21:40:56 -0700 Hi Bill, I stay at Captain Don's Habitat. (see link on the page below) Read about my Bonaire experiences at: http://home.comcast.net/~tb0yd/Bonaire.html It's GREAT! Enjoy! Tim ---------------- Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 21:40:32 -0700 From: Jeremy Tavan We were very much not impressed with the staff, accommodations, and dive operation at the Divi Flamingo. The dive pier was very convenient, with tanks always available, but that's about the only positive I can think of. I'd suggest going elsewhere. The only really positive recommendation I can make for Bonaire is for Capriccio restaurant, where we had one of the best Italian meals I've had outside of Italy. Highly recommended indeed. Hope this helps, /Jeremy Tavan ---------------- From: Frank MzD Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 21:39:08 -0700 (PDT) Hi Bill, definitely check out the http://www.bonairetalk.com message board for all sorts of information and reviews of resorts, car rentals, etc. Bonaire is easy diving - maybe it will be a bit boring if you have been to other dive destinations in the carribbean... Best regards Frank ---------------- From: Robert H. Lee Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 21:27:26 -0700 We went last May and stayed here: http://www.denlaman.com/ We stayed in a studio which was nice and modern and had a full kitchen. The dive operation is literally right downstairs in the same building. They have a communal gear room that is locked at night and lockers available for locking up tanks for night diving (they tell you not to put anything but tanks/weights in there for theft reasons). Nitrox (32%) is included in the price as well. The house reef there (Bari Reef) turned out to be our favourite site, so that was also convenient. When we go again, they would be my first choice.